H2 About the Challenge

Welcome to the National Cipher Challenge, a nationwide, online codebreaking competition, which will run from October 15th 2015 to January 7th 2016. We will open for online registration on October 5th.

The competition is a great extension activity (or a fantastic maths club project) that can be tackled by students in teams or on their own. There is no charge to register or take part, and all you need to get involved is a reasonably modern web browser. This year competitors will be challenged to help Harry track down the Reichsdoktor in postwar Berlin. His enemies are cunning and the story will unfold in a series of short encrypted messages. Competitors will work with Harry to decipher these documents in order to untangle the truth.

 

 

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You can download lesson plans and notes on codebreaking from the Black Chamber on the competition website. This is the competition library and, alongside the challenges themselves, it provides a range of supporting materials that provide a good introduction to the skills needed by a successful code-breaker.

Entrants can take part alone or in teams of any size. To take part you will need to register on the website, and your account also gives you access to the forum where you can discuss a whole range of things connected to the competition, and quite a few that are totally unrelated.

Everyone involved in the challenge can have their own account to allow them access to the forum, but by default only the team captain can post entries for a team with multiple members. If you want to allow other members of the team to edit and submit entries then the team captain can use our Team Builder to invite others to join. Details are given below.